by S. J. Rozan
“No way-”
“Armpit, the private army thing is over. The way this went down today, no one will hire the White Eagles to take out the garbage. If you don’t find out who the clients were, I may have to tell Mary I’ve just run out of family feeling.” I hung up on him. Then I called Bill. “Where are you?”
“In my kitchen drinking coffee. You?”
“On my way home, to take a shower. Who ever said I didn’t know when to quit?”
“Everyone. You want to get together when you’re done?”
“Of course.”
In the empty apartment I showered, dressed, and got ready to hit the street again. I wore a big linen shirt. I’d have been happier in a sleeveless top and shorts, but with the way bullets had been flying around lately I’d have felt uncomfortable without a gun. The NYPD still had the.25 Fishface had taken off me, but a.22 can do in a pinch. Just before I left, I called my mother. Someone was sure to tell her about the scene outside New Day Noodle, and I wanted her to think whatever they said was greatly exaggerated.
Barry answered the phone. “Auntie Lydia! Po-po’s teaching us to play fan-tan! I won three dollars and eight cents!” He ran to get my mother.
“Ling Wan-ju? Are you all right?” my mother demanded. “Those gang boys, did they come?”
“No, Ma.” We went to them.
“I see.” I could hear her relax. “Then you had no reason to send me out to Flushing.”
“I sent you so I wouldn’t have to worry, remember? How are you?”
“If you are not worrying, why did you call?”
Sigh. “Just to check up. Listen, Ma, there was some excitement, and a bunch of White Eagles are in jail.”
“Your cousin Clifford? Oh, his poor mother!”
“No, Clifford’s okay. But if you speak to Kwan Shan, tell her to tell Clifford to behave himself. His dai lo’s been arrested, and the cops are watching him and his friends.”
“Kwan Shan can say what she wants. Clifford will not listen. Some children never listen to their mothers. Your brother is painting the downstairs kitchen white, to make it brighter.”
If a more pointed remark was ever made, I couldn’t think of it. “That’s great, Ma. I have to go. Talk to you later.” I locked up and headed to Excellent Dumpling House.
Bill was there waiting. “You look fresh and sharp.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Mixing it up with the White Eagles took it out of you?”
“No, but I just got off the phone with my mother. You okay?”
“Fine. Mary yelled at me, but she didn’t arrest me, so I came out ahead. She wanted to know whether crashing the noodle shop meeting was my stupid idea or your stupid idea.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said we’re such a perfect team, so much in sync, it’s impossible to tell which of us originated any particular stupid idea.”
“I’ll bet she loved that.”
“Not even a little. You want pork, chicken, or shrimp?”
“All three. And dry-fried green beans.”
He raised his eyebrows, but I ignored him. He was the one who’d pointed out I get hungry when my adrenaline’s high. I didn’t mention the orange and the banana I’d eaten when I got home, or the Fig Newtons I’d grabbed on my way out the door.
“We have a problem,” I said while we waited for the dumplings.
“Mary wants Alice, I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We?”
“Don’t give me that look. We, white man.”
“Can I say something serious?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
“If Wong Pan killed Joel, then whatever else, you did what you promised Joel. You caught his killer.”
I sipped tea, and when it was gone, I said, “We,” again.
Bill gave me a grin, I gave him a slow smile, and we probably looked like idiots by the time the waiter settled bamboo steamers on our table.
For a while we focused on dumplings and beans. The clatter, the rush, the familiar smells and tastes finally relaxed me. “Maybe it doesn’t matter.” I poured the remains of the tea. “About Alice. I have no idea how to find her.”
“You have her sister.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mention that. Do I have to give her to Mary? She’s so… cheerful.”
He said nothing, which said everything.
“Oh, you’re impossible! Can I finish lunch first?” Without waiting for his answer, in case he said no, I pulled out my phone. Not to call Mary, though. I wanted to try Alice once more.
“It’s Lydia,” I told her voice mail. “The entire NYPD is looking for you. You’re in serious trouble. I’d like to talk to you before they do. Call me.”
I put the phone away. “You know what really bothers me?”
“The Shanghai Moon. That it wasn’t here.”
“You’re impossible, but you do have your moments. Yes, the Shanghai Moon. That it’s no more real now than when you were hearing about it in sailors’ bars. It hasn’t come back. It hasn’t been seen at least since Rosalie died, probably longer than that. Everyone told us that, but I didn’t listen. I’ve never even seen the thing, and I got all tangled up, just like all those other people over the years. I wanted to believe. Because of Rosalie and Kai-rong. I wanted-”
“Lydia?”
“Stop. If you’re about to tell me not to be hard on myself, I don’t-”
“I’m not. Listen. Zhang said he’d never told that story before, about when Rosalie died. To anyone.”
“So he wouldn’t call down more bad luck. My mother would understand that.”
“Right. So how did C. D. know? He told us Chen and Zhang always thought robbers took the Shanghai Moon. How did he know about the robbers?”
“Mr. Zhang must have told him. He’s his brother.”
“He said no one, ever. He tried not to even think about it because of the bad luck. And he didn’t see C.D. again until twenty years later. Why would he tell him then?”
I thought about it. “Maybe Mr. Chen told him?”
“Zhang said neither of them talked about it.”
“Paul Gilder?”
“C. D. said he hardly knew him.”
“Still…”
“It’s possible. But don’t you want to know?”
“What are you thinking?” I asked, as it began to dawn on me what he was thinking.
He stood and dropped two twenties on the table.
I stood, too. “We’re going to get in his face in the hospital?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t ask again. Of course we were.
“There might be cops here,” I said as we rode the elevator to C. D. Zhang’s floor. “In case he changes his mind about talking.”
“Not if they’re not charging him. It’s not in the budget. But aren’t Chen and Zhang supposed to be here? That might put a crimp in his willingness to talk to us.”
“What willingness? Especially given what we’ve come to talk about.”
But in C. D. Zhang’s room no visitors were in evidence. A jovial man, watching TV from the near bed, tipped his head helpfully toward the curtain around the bed by the window. “He’s sleeping.”
“That’s okay,” I smiled. “We’ll be quiet.” I tried to look like a concerned relative, though I wasn’t sure what Bill looked like. We pushed through the curtain, and there was C. D. Zhang, looking old and frail. His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping, or if he was, we woke him. He turned his head, looking at us but saying nothing.
“Hello, Mr. Zhang,” I said. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”
After a moment he gave what, if he’d been stronger, might have been a snort. “I’m not sure, Ms. Chin, whether you endangered my life or saved it,” he said in a voice weak but clear.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Mr. Zhang, we’ve come to ask you some questions.”
He turned his head away. But he didn’t tell me to stop.<
br />
“Wong Pan. You knew who he was?”
“Of course I did.”
“And you knew what he was selling?”
“Why else would I have been there?”
“Why were the White Eagles there?”
“To steal both the jewel and the money, I can only assume.”
“But there was no money.”
He gave me a long look. “It’s true, then? That was what I understood the police to tell me, though I’ve been given so much medication I thought perhaps I’d imagined it.”
“No, it’s true.”
“Nor any jewel, I understand.”
“Mr. Zhang, why was there no money?”
He smiled sardonically. “Thank you for the courtesy of the indirect question. What you really mean is, at what point did I steal my brother’s million dollars and where is it now?”
“I didn’t-”
“I think you did. No matter! The police certainly did. They think I hired the White Eagles, in a clever scheme.”
“You obviously knew them.”
“They bring me orange trees at the New Year! For which I pay a considerable amount, I promise you.”
That’s how protection works: The gang brings a good-luck orange tree, the merchant gives them a good-luck red envelope. Luck smiles on everyone all year.
“I didn’t, though. Hire them. Nor did I take the money. I thought that briefcase full of cash.”
Bill asked, “Was it ever out of your sight, the briefcase?”
“I had it with me every minute.”
“And you’re sure it had the cash in it when you got it?”
“No.” C. D. looked away again. “It was locked when my brother gave it to me.”
“It was?” I asked. “Why?”
“Perhaps they didn’t trust me not to help myself.”
“They trusted you to make the buy, but not to leave the cash alone? Weren’t you offended?”
He sighed. “With the exception of sponsoring them to come to this country, my cousin and my brother have never asked anything of me. An introduction, a loan, advice on a business venture… the small good turns of families. Nothing. This was the first time. And on a subject so vital! If I was offended, that was secondary. I was honored and delighted and I’d have accepted the charge on any terms they’d proposed.” He paused. “Ms. Chin? Mr. Smith? When the police left and Li and Lao-li were allowed back in this room, I told them what I’d learned about the money in the briefcase. My cousin seemed quite startled.”
“And your brother?”
“He only said, ‘The important thing is for you to get well, brother. The rest means nothing.’ ” C. D. Zhang smiled in a way not at all sardonic but sweet and sad. “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear words like that from him. If I’d known the way to do it was to get shot, I’d have made the effort sooner.” The smile faded. “But I don’t know if he believes I didn’t take the money. I think, to the contrary, he believes I did, but, since the Shanghai Moon was not lost as a result of my pilferage, he’s willing to forgive me. He probably expects I’ll return it to him when I’m well, and all will be as before. But I didn’t take it. I can’t return it. His anger, kept in check now by a family feeling I’ve been hoping for all my life, will erupt.” A pause, and then, tentatively, “Can you… talk to him? Ms. Chin? Can you persuade him this is the truth?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“Yes. Yes, of course it is.”
“Well, maybe it is. And maybe I can convince Mr. Zhang. But you haven’t been entirely devoted to the truth in the stories you’ve told so far.”
“What do you mean?”
“Or maybe you told a little too much of it.”
“I still don’t-”
A brief moment, while I reminded myself this was not just an old man but an injured one. Then I shoved that qualm aside. “Why weren’t you and your father together on the day you left Shanghai?”
“But we were. On the Taipei Pearl. I told you.”
“Not on the ship. Before that.”
“In the wailing and screaming, in the crush in the streets, people flying every which way with their pitiful possessions-the miracle would have been if any two people had been able to stay together as they made their way through Shanghai.”
“Especially if they had different destinations.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were going to the wharf. Your father went somewhere else, didn’t he?”
“Once we’d lost each other, I don’t know what he did.”
“He went to the Chen villa with two other men and tried to rob it. He killed Rosalie Gilder when she fought back. That was what your father did before you met him on the Taipei Pearl.”
Pale already, C. D.’s face drained of all color. “Ms. Chin! How can you-”
“You told us your cousin and brother are sure robbers took the Shanghai Moon. But neither Mr. Chen or Mr. Zhang ever told the story of that day. To anyone. How do you know about the robbers?”
We could have been wrong. If he’d said of course his brother had told him the story, what could we have done? But this was the answer Bill had proposed to the question he’d asked. I’d agreed, and my instincts told me we were right.
And we were. But wrong, also.
“Did your father take the Shanghai Moon from Rosalie?” I asked, more gently, when he didn’t respond. “Have you had it all these years?”
“No.” C. D.’s voice was dry and rustling. “No. My father didn’t kill Rosalie.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s too much wrong. Your knowing what went on. Rosalie not having the gem. You and your father not staying together. Maybe the reason you didn’t take your brother’s million dollars is that you already have his jewel.”
“Is that what you believe? Is that what you’ll tell my brother and my cousin?”
“I don’t know what I’ll tell them. I don’t know what to believe. Except that this all needs to be explained. If your father didn’t give the Shanghai Moon to you-”
“He didn’t give it to me. Or to anyone. He never had the Shanghai Moon. My father didn’t kill Rosalie Gilder, Ms. Chin. I did.”
38
I stood in stunned silence at C. D. Zhang’s bedside. I didn’t know what to say, and neither, obviously, did Bill. C. D. suddenly grinned a shadow of his old, ironic grin. “I see you didn’t know that.”
I said in astonishment, “No, of course not.”
“In that case, Ms. Chin, I must apologize for the mayhem in your office.”
“My office?”
“I asked Deng dai lo to provide entry, and I must say he made a creative and efficient job of it.”
“You were the client?”
“Your documents, the newly discovered sources from that time. I was afraid somewhere there was a trail that would lead to me.”
“That’s why you offered to read them for me.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t find them. I had them at home. Why didn’t you try that next?”
“Ms. Chin! Where your aged mother lives?” His look said I should be ashamed of myself. “No, I decided I would be forced to take my chances. And I can see now it was not the documents that betrayed me.”
“No. But I don’t understand. The way you’ve spoken about Rosalie… and your brother was there… how could you do that?”
“I’m not sure I can make you understand. But if you want to hear the story, and then judge me as I’ve judged myself through all these years, I’ll tell you.”
“Yes,” I said. “We certainly do.”
C. D. Zhang gazed at the ceiling as though a grainy old film were flickering there. After a long pause, he began to speak.
“I was twelve when we left Shanghai. I was eighteen when we returned, and a soldier. My body had grown, my face hardened, my voice deepened. I was not with my father, had not been together with him for weeks. He’d gone ahead, to make sure of our arrangements on the Taipei Pearl. I entered
Shanghai with two men from my unit, no older than I. Through terrible days and nights these companions had followed me without question. But now I was leaving Shanghai, and they were not. They had no fathers to buy them passage with stolen wealth, as I had.”
“Stolen?” As soon as I said it, Bill shot me a glance, and I could have kicked myself for interrupting. But the word had grabbed my attention. C. D. Zhang didn’t seem to notice.
“By 1949 anyone with eyes unclouded by doctrine could see Chiang Kai-shek’s army wouldn’t win the civil war. Abandoning any pretense of fighting for a cause-which had only been pretense in any case-my father had his troops lay siege to villages and towns, for no reason but thievery. They killed those who resisted, chased off the rest, and divided the spoils. Oh, don’t think he was the only officer who did this, or even the worst! There was no order toward the war’s end, no rule of law, or sense, or kindness. War is a madhouse of fear, hunger, and death. We were all mad.
“Myself included. My unit-a tattered and pitiful bunch, wrapped in rags, living on crickets and field mice, filthy, diseased-tried, in those last days, to work our way toward Shanghai. Not to fight, not to hold the city for our glorious Generalissimo, oh, no. To escape! Our captain had died of a fever, and we had no leader, except myself. Not from rank but because, as I told you, I seemed to have a skill for finding food and shelter, what little there was to be had. My fellows followed me, and I carried their hope like a heavy weight.
“But I wasn’t up to the task. Under my inadequate command we stumbled into an ambush. Remembering a flooded marsh outside Shanghai where frogs were plentiful when I was a boy, I led the way. But Mao’s soldiers had reached the area before us, situating themselves on high ground. I might have seen evidence of their positions, had I known what to look for, but I didn’t. They pinned us down, and over three days they picked us off.
“At first we took aim, but shooting only drew their fire. So, in the steaming heat, soaked and starving, we waited to die. Crickets whirred and the wounded moaned. Otherwise all was still. Only when one of us, unable to bear it, tried to bolt, did we hear the whine of bullets. The wounded died and the dead began to rot. Crows circled and landed to feast. Mao’s troops amused themselves firing at the birds.
